Sea of Ghosts - Alan Campbell [64]
The mechanical breathing continued – Haaaa . . . Shuuu . . . Haa . . . Shuuu . . . – and now the submariner’s own breaths sounded laboured. He rubbed sweat from his eyes, then slid off his seat and crouched over the hole.
How did this man’s handlers expect him to find treasure in such a crude manner? He could see nothing but a yard of seabed through that open portal, and not much more beyond those thick glass windows.
A bell rang overhead.
The craft slowed until it was barely a fathom above the sea bed – then stopped.
The submariner looked up to where a huge brass helmet hung under a fat spool of rubber piping fixed to the ceiling. He manoeuvred himself up past the seat, until he was almost standing upright in the confined space. Then he pushed his head inside the helmet.
Now Ianthe found herself looking out through the edge of an even smaller window, this one in the helmet itself. Haaaa . . . Shuu . . . Haaaa . . . Shuuu . . . The rasp and suck of air grew loud in her ears. She realized that the breathing pipe had been in the helmet all along. Sweat trickled down her neck – his neck. His neck. He gave a grunt, then wrenched the helmet round so that its tiny window lined up with his face. Ianthe heard four clamps, one after the other, snap into place.
He crouched down over the hole again. His heart was racing, his lungs straining in his chest. He picked up a spade. Then he lowered himself down into the brine.
Ianthe felt icy cold water close around her host’s knees, then his waist, and then he was gliding down through that toxic murk. His boots sank into grey silt, raising clouds as fine as pollen. She could see even less than before now. Gem lanterns glimmered on the exterior of the diving craft, but they were centuries old, and their radiance had long since lost its vigour. The man unhitched one of them and held it out.
A few yards ahead of him lay the ragged outline of a low wall. An anchor chain rose up beyond this, the links rimed with brine crystals. The submariner began to walk towards the chain, inclining his head in his direction of travel to keep the heavy helmet balanced as he dragged his feet through the sucking earth. That short walk seemed to take an age, but finally he reached his goal. He ran a gloved hand along the rough surface of the wall, disturbing a cloud of silt. Then he regarded the chain and looked up.
He was barely six fathoms down, yet the brown weight of the seawater above made it appear much deeper. Dusk glimmered on the surface of the waters like a peat fire. The anchor chain terminated at a buoy, close to which lay the silhouette of a ship’s hull.
The submariner found a gap in the wall and stepped through into the street Ianthe had seen from the diving craft. She spotted the trail of the hacker crab she’d noticed earlier, but the creature itself was nowhere in sight. Something dark wriggled at the edge of her vision.
The man’s heart quickened. He swung round.
An eel darted away into the gloom.
‘Give me grace.’
His voice startled Ianthe. She had assumed he’d be unable to speak down here. But there was air here, of course – a frighteningly small pocket, certainly, but air nonetheless. Her host’s heart slowed, and he resumed his trek.
‘Sixteen gilders a dive,’ he muttered. ‘Bastard wouldn’t buy a night in ’thugra.’
She was used to hearing people speak to themselves, but this man’s voice sounded odd down here, huge and metallic. Yet it was strangely comforting, like a light in an immense void. You wouldn’t want a night in Ethugra, she thought.
His eyes filled with perspiration, and he blinked. ‘Still better than here,’ he said.
Ianthe smiled inwardly. Wasn’t it funny how people sometimes seemed to respond to her thoughts? She tried again. What are you looking for down here?
This time he didn’t give any indication that he’d heard her.
He trudged on down the street.
But then something horrible happened.
Ianthe felt brine